


Stick around

by Nival_Vixen



Series: Short & sweet tumblr-weed [11]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, Bounty Hunters, Complete, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Maiming, Rescue Missions, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Tortured Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1827235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nival_Vixen/pseuds/Nival_Vixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has a gun pointed at his head, just as he did two years ago. This time he's not flinching, and he's not afraid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stick around

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [these Tumblr gifs](http://nivalvixen.tumblr.com/post/89535552962/warnings-angst-thoughts-of-suicide-and)

Stiles can’t look away. He can’t. He’s not afraid, not a stutter in his heart, no jump in his pulse. He’s not afraid, for the first time in years, yet there’s a gun with a silencer pointed at his head, resting directly on his forehead even. He should be afraid, he was afraid of a revolver pointed at him only two years ago, but it feels so much longer than that. He’s been hurt, seen hurt, caused the hurt himself, and all of that is so much worse than anything this can do to him. He just stares the hunter down, daring her to do it, to end it, to do what he can’t bring himself to do - no matter how many times he wakes up screaming and his heart’s pounding in fear every morning, and isn’t it odd that he scares himself shitless every damn night, but this there’s nothing? There’s something wrong with him, obviously.

There’s a shout from behind him, but Stiles clenches his jaw and holds up a fist, telling the others to stay where they are. _He’ll deal with this_. The hunter seems amused when the Alpha of the pack defers to him and they all actually back down, but it’s not a show of power or weakness, it’s the trust his pack have in him. And that’s where Stiles gets his strength, to get up every morning, to let his eyes skate over the kitchen knives, to pretend that he doesn’t know exactly where his father keeps the key for his gun when it’s locked away at night. His pack trust him, and he won’t let them down. Not again.

Stiles smiles, a twisted thing that would make lesser beings scared, and moves his head until he can feel the barrel of the silencer indenting his skin.

"Well? If you’re not going to shoot me, then let me pass. I paid you what you asked; now I’m taking Derek and leaving."

The hunter looks over him in a way that makes Stiles’ skin crawl, but the gun’s lowered and she steps back. Stiles is escorted to the basement (escorted is perhaps too kind a word, a thug with meaty hands grabbing his upper arm with enough force to bruise later, before taking him down through the trapdoor).

In fact, basement is far too kind a word as well; the place stinks of blood and death, and Stiles barely refrains from gagging in disgust. There are cages with some smaller shifted weres, but he can’t look at them. He can’t, or he’ll try to leave with them all, and he can’t risk Derek’s life like that. He’s led to one of the larger cages, and it’s then that his heart skips a beat because it’s Derek in the cage, blue eyed and snarling with his fangs and claws out. He doesn’t care if he gets fucking mauled the moment the cage door is opened; Derek is alive.

Stiles wants to sob in relief that Derek is alive, because everyone else had thought the worst, Stiles’ nightmares bleeding into reality so that every time he opened or closed his eyes, all he could see was Derek. Derek being tortured, Derek bleeding out, Derek dying. He smiles at Derek who is definitely alive and not dead, eyes a little watery (so sue him), and then glares at the hunter’s thug, telling him to open the cage right fucking now. The man doesn’t seem pleased at all, and Derek’s still snarling, but the cage door is opened, the man holding a taser in front of him protectively.

Derek has to crawl out of the cage, a final humiliation for a werewolf from such a proud lineage, but the moment he’s up, he attacks. Stiles is faster on his feet - and with his mind - than he used to be, sees Derek’s intent before he’s even registered it, and knocks the taser away from the thug as Derek barrels into the meaty man with a loud roar. Scott’s answering roar is deafening, even in the basement, and Stiles just stands back and watches as Derek tears the man apart. He’s panting heavily when the man’s finally dead, eyes still blue and claws still out, but Stiles doesn’t hesitate for a second, moving forward to put his hand on Derek’s shoulder gently. Derek looks up at him, blue eyes fading, and he lets himself be hauled up to his feet and out of the basement.

The hunter and the rest of her team have been tied up in a corner, and it’s only when Derek’s outside and safe that Stiles remembers the rest of the weres in the cages. Scott runs back in without a second thought, but Stiles stays with Derek.

He remembers the press of the gun barrel against his forehead, the momentary wish for the trigger to be pulled, for this all to be over, and he shakes his head to dispel his thoughts. He still has a purpose: his pack needs him, Derek needs him, his Dad needs him. Stiles promises himself that he’ll be here - **stay** here - for them until they no longer need him as much as he needs them. He’s not going to leave them, not when they’re finally a pack again.

Stiles makes sure that Derek will be all right, and for once, Derek doesn’t seem inclined to push him away, though he certainly has the energy by now. He’s not stupid enough to think that it’s anything more than Derek being exhausted, even when Derek falls asleep against his shoulder. But Stiles starts to think that maybe he could stick around even after he’s outlived his usefulness after all.

...

The end.


End file.
